Newport News man gets 15 years in child porn case

Mandatory minimum term was triggered because of prior conviction in 1984

June 16, 2011|By Peter Dujardin, pdujardin@dailypress.com 247-4749

NEWPORT NEWS — A Newport News man was sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday on federal child pornography charges — a mandatory minimum sentence triggered because of a prior conviction 27 years ago.

Ronald O. Colson, 55, had about 50 videos involving child pornography and more than 400 still images of child porn on a computer confiscated from his home in 2010, an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified in federal court. The computer also contained 1,120 images of "child erotica" — clothed or partially nude photos of children in suggestive poses.

"I'm very sorry and ashamed," Colson told U.S. District Judge Mark Davis. "I feel bad for my family and friends. … I would like to get treatment and help. I'm just very sorry, your honor. Very sorry."

Davis sentenced him to the mandatory minimum 15 years for all six counts of receiving child pornography. The sentences will run concurrently, followed by probation for the remainder of his life.

Colson pleaded guilty to the charges in February, admitting that he downloaded the images and videos from Internet file-sharing sites. Colson also engaged in explicit online chats with other like-minded adults in which he boasted about babysitting his "neighbor's children" and engaging in sexual behavior with them.

Colson said his comments in the online chats — in which he relayed that his neighbor's boys were 2 and 5 years old — were "pure fantasy." Federal investigators failed to uncover any factual basis for his online chat comments.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Colson would have qualified for a range of 10 years and one month to 12 years and 7 months. But those guidelines were rendered moot because of a conviction 27 years ago that heralded the 15-year minimum.

In 1984, Colson was convicted in Newport News Circuit Court of taking a picture of a nude boy at a swimming pool.

A big question at Thursday's hearing was whether the 1984 case amounted to "sexual abuse." Under federal law, the mandatory 15-year term is triggered with a second conviction of sexually abusing a minor.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Yusi said that a statement Colson provided to police in the 1984 case reflects that he not only asked to take pictures of the boy, but also asked to touch the boy's penis, a solicitation the boy rejected.

Davis could not consider that witness statement, but had to consider only the charge, conviction and sentence. And Colson's lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Walter Dalton, said the charge itself — that he took a picture of a nude child — does not necessarily amount to "sexual abuse."

But Davis overruled that objection, saying that to be convicted on the 1984 charge, the state judge had to rule that the picture was "lewd," at the very least. Taking a lewd picture of a minor is a form of sexual abuse, Davis ruled.

The case against Colson began with a 2010 investigation into a California website by the U.S. Postal Inspector's Service, in which Colson was identified as a user. Investigators sent him a catalogue containing references to child porn, to see if he'd try to buy some. When he did not bite, they investigators visited his home, and he agreed to let them take his computer.